Doomsday Dib
by Spectra
Summary: Something very strange is happening to Dib, and he soon discovers it's all part of Zim's plan to turn him into the ultimate destructive weapon of rampagey DOOM!! Will Dib REALLY be the one to help his archenemy finally achieve global conquest?
1. The Nightmare

A/N: Uh-kay, I'm gonna try not to clutter this story up with a buncha author's notes, so let me just get this out of the way before you start reading. I want to say thanks to Implosion for giving me the idea for this fic by something she mentioned from an RP. Aside from her, this was inspired mostly by two things: Hamstergeddon (which if you _WANTED_ to *stressing the 'wanted' here* you could consider this a sequel to), and my undying love of cheesy old Godzilla movies and other fine, quality 'mutant rampaging monster' films. Dib in certain situations just stikes me as funny, and well, I got a good laugh writing this. I don't like flames, but if you absolutely MUST inform me that my writing is crap and you want to crush my soul into little soul chips of bitterness, well then that's your right. But try to be kind, please? Thanx ^_^

Chapter 1: The Nightmare

A black and pale white shadow made its way along the dark street, its glasses giving off a faint glint in the light cast by the row of lamps that lined it, the figure's black cape of a trench coat flapping behind it as it sped through the cool nighttime air. 

How long had he been running? And more importantly, how far away had he gotten? Was the other one still there, or had he managed to finally give his adversary the slip? He had to have outrun him by now, right? Behind him, the boy heard a rhythmic clickity-click of metal on cement, and the sound sent a chill down his back. It was still there, the alien was still right on his tail. He picked up his speed though his muscles screamed for rest, forcing his legs to move as fast as they could. Beads of sweat stood out on his pale forehead, his breath was coming out in short gasps, and the sound of his boots hitting the pavement mingled with the metallic clings making for a most bizarre duet.

He'd gone to spy on the alien at least a hundred times it seemed, so how come this time it'd gone so horribly wrong? It had been another simple, routine mission; go over to its base, snap a few photos, maybe collect a DNA sample or two, then breeze on out of there. The only thing was this time the alien had been lying in anticipation for him, waiting for him to come. _Wanting_ him to come, it seemed. Why? The boy had no idea, but now here he was fleeing for his life, being hunted down by a maniacal little extraterrestrial like a frightened rabbit evading a bloodthirsty wolf. 

The boy ducked around a corner hoping to conceal himself in the shadows cast by the tall building. His heart thudded loudly in his chest, and he had to strain to hear over the noise it made, but he clearly heard the sound of metal on cement coming towards him. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited to die… then to his immense relief the clicks faded away as the alien predator skittered past his hiding place without a glance.

After a moment, the boy took a peek around the side of the building. There was no sign of his pursuer, and he drew his head back into the shadows trying to come up with a plan. He couldn't be too far from home now, not after all the running he'd done. He figured if he traveled along the back alleyways hidden by the darkness, there was a chance that he could outfox his opponent and make it back to his house in a matter of five minutes, maybe less if he was lucky. Creeping back deeper into the thick blackness and taking one last look around, he broke into a run and found himself heading straight into the waiting jaws of four metal, spider legs with a pair of scarlet eyes gleaming in their midst.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

***

Dib awoke with a start. He sat up and put a hand to his sweating brow, his breath coming out in tiny huffs.

"…It was just a dream." 

He shook his head and glanced around his bedroom, a flood of relief washing over him as his eyes fell upon the familiar, friendly surroundings of his computer, his stack of Para-zines, and his numerous outer space charts and UFO posters decorating the walls. "Man, I really do think my dreams are getting worse," he mumbled with a frown. Shaking away the nightmare, Dib adjusted his glasses (and when he thought it over later, he realized the fact that he was already wearing them should have been his first hint that something funny was going on) and looked over at his alarm clock. "Oh no! I'm gonna be late for skool!"

He hastily leaped out of bed and sprang over to the closet to get dressed. As Dib lifted his hand to the palm scanner however, he noticed that he was _already_ wearing his trademark black coat, black pants, and blue blasé-faced shirt. "That's odd," he mused aloud, "I don't remember falling asleep in my clothes." Dib glanced down at his feet. "_And_ my boots," he added, seeing that he was still wearing those too. 

"Come to think of it... I don't remember _anything_ about last night," he suddenly realized. 

Dib narrowed his bespectacled eyes in concentration, trying to recall some small fragment of memory about the previous night, but nothing surfaced. "I remember I was planning on investigating Zim's house, but I don't remember anything else. Did I even go to Zim's last night? And that dream I had…" Dib stood there and tried to remember the details of it. Had it really been a dream? It _had_ felt awfully real, more like a repressed memory than any nightmare. But if it had actually happened then how come he'd awakened in his own room? If the memory was accurate shouldn't he have woken up strapped to one of Zim's examining tables, or as a floating head in a jar or something?

"Could I have had a blackout?" Dib had never been prone to them before, but who knew how quickly these medical conditions could develop. It did explain why he couldn't remember anything… but still, something about that dream kept plaguing his mind.

Dib peered around his room as if something in there could give him an answer, and his eye fell upon the clock again where the numbers 7:57 glowed a harsh, bright green. "Eep!" There was no time to dwell on whacked-out dreams and potential narcolepsy at the moment. Not when there was a scary snake-woman with a teaching degree waiting to bite off his head if he was late one more time.

He snatched up his backpack and after a quick glance in the mirror to run a hand through his pointy, black hair, he bolted down the stairs to the kitchen where he shoved a donut in his mouth before heading out the door. Gaz had already left without him he noted with a touch of dismay, but this thought and any others he may have had were quickly replaced by the more important task of getting to skool on time. Still, while he was running, he did notice that his legs seemed a bit sore this morning, as if he'd run too much the day before. The dream flashed across his mind again, but this thought was fleeting and was gone as quickly as it'd come. 


	2. A Turn for the Weirder

Chapter 2: A Turn for the Weirder

Ms. Bitters looked up from where she was writing on the board as Dib slunk into the classroom, her chalk making a teeth-grinding screech and leaving an ugly white streak across the green surface as she whipped around to face the doomed latecomer. "I don't know why you bother coming to skool if you insist on arriving _late_ every day," she snapped in a raspy voice. "So what's your excuse _this_ time?"

"I uh... overslept," Dib said. This response earned him a lowered eyebrow from his teacher.

"That's it?" she spat almost disappointedly. "No werewolf crossing guards? No zombie cab drivers? You just _overslept?_" Ms. Bitters glared at him through oval-shaped lenses. "Well, congratulations Dib, that's the lamest excuse from you so far this year."

Dib looked down at the floor awkwardly; even _he_ had to admit how lame it was. "Oh, did I say 'overslept?' I meant to say I was in the locker room trying to get skin samples from that yeti that lives in the towel bin," he offered instead.

"Hmph, _that's_ more like it," the vulture-like crone pointed towards the window. "Now sit down!" 

Dib walked over to his desk, but as he did he took a glimpse over at the opposite side of the room. After all, no morning would have been complete if he didn't start it off by shooting a vexing glare at his archenemy. It was Dib's metaphorical cup of coffee, so to speak. Zim sat there with his hands folded neatly on his desk in, Dib thought, a ridiculous attempt to pass himself off as a model student. As their eyes met, the disguised Irken sneered and stuck out his tongue at the black-clad boy.

Ms. Bitters slithered to her desk and took out an electronic solitaire game. "Now," she addressed the students in a voice oozing with doom, "I don't feel like teaching today, so you're all going to sit there and memorize the material in your text books until every last bit of standardized information has pushed all the creativeness and free thought from your heads."

A little girl in the back of the room raised her hand. "But yesterday you said we were gonna draw pretty pictures for our mommies and daddies."

"Clearly you misheard me," Ms. Bitters growled. "Now, start soaking up the data in those text books like the little societal leeches you are."

The class sat in silence for the next half-hour, the unbearable quiet only broken by the little beeps and blips coming from the handheld game Ms. Bitters was currently absorbed in. Of course Dib, being the genius that he was, had already finished reading long ago. Now he leaned on his elbow and made another mark with his pencil, putting the finishing touches on a drawing of himself standing next to a tank containing the Loch Ness Monster, and all the people of Scotland standing around 'Oo-ing' and 'Ah-ing' at his triumphant capture. This _is what I hurried to get here for? _he thought, tapping his pencil impatiently, though he supposed it was better than another one of Ms. Bitters's morbid lectures on the downward spiral of humanity. Sighing, Dib added another guy in a kilt to the crowd.

As the minutes ticked away, Dib's eyelids drooped with boredom and he began twirling his pencil around and around, lacing the yellow piece of wood through his fingers like a baton as if it were the most fascinating thing on Earth, and at that moment it pretty much was. He'd been doing this for about a minute when he sensed someone staring at him.

Dib's honey colored eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion and darted over his right shoulder, searching for the source of his sudden paranoia. 

A couple kids had their heads down on their desks, a few back at the art table were eating paste, one kid was building himself a fleet of paper airplanes, and another one was picking something out of his ear, but no one was paying any attention to him. The young paranormalist had learned to trust his instinct, however, and his gaze slowly wandered over to 'the green kid.' Zim was sitting there exactly like he'd been before with his hands clasped and staring off into space, humming a little tune. To anyone else, he'd have been the picture of innocence, but Dib knew better. Dib knew _way_ better. _And someday I'll prove it to the rest of the world_ he vowed silently. 

Though their battles always ended in a draw, Dib was confident that it was only a matter of time before he obtained the upper hand and vanquished his enemy's ill threat once and for all. It was tireless and thankless work, but nonetheless the job of protecting the Earth had fallen to him, and he took pride in the fact that he alone could keep it out of Zim's diabolic clutches.

After a minute or so of observation, Dib began feeling bored again, since his nemesis wasn't doing anything very exciting, so he picked up his pencil and turned his attention back to his gallery of paranormal themed art. 

As soon as Zim saw Dib distracted out of the corner of his eye, he resumed his vengeful fix on the trench-coated boy, and his green lips curled up into a smirk brimming with evil intent. His gloved hands relaxed their grip on each other, and as they opened, a tiny box-like, remote device was revealed sitting in his palm. Zim's already wolfish smile widened as he ran a finger over a large, green button, then, he abruptly forced it down into its socket.

"YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!" At the same time across the room, Dib suddenly let out a piercing screech of alarm. His eyes widened in surprise and his pencil flew out of his hand. He jumped out of his seat, only to clumsily trip and end up on his belly. As he shook himself off with a groan, a looming shadow fell over him.

"Is there a problem, Dib?" Ms. Bitters asked in an uncaring tone.

Dib shakily got up on his knees. "I… I mean… I uh… there was…" he stared up into his teacher's cold, unaffectionate eyes and sighed. What was the point? His explanations never got him anything except more ridicule from his classmates. "No, ma'am. It's nothing."

Ms. Bitters only hissed at him like a rattlesnake before returning to the front of the room and reclaiming her handheld, reminding Dib of his game-obsessed sister. He watched her go then calmly put his head down on his desk, but a million confused thoughts still scrolled through his brain. 

__

What was_ that?!! It feels like I just licked a taser! _Well okay, so it hadn't hurt _that_ much, and Dib had screamed more out of surprise than any real pain, but still he had no idea what could have caused what felt like a mild electric shock to surge through his body just a moment ago. 

He glanced around his desk searching for any exposed wires or electric cords_. Well,_ _I don't see any, so where did it come from? _After racking his brain for several minutes, Dib finally came to a brilliant, well-crafted assessment… He must just have a bad case of static build-up. It was a pretty pathetic guess, but there was no other explanation, so he settled on that as being the culprit and put it out of his mind. That little mystery solved, he bent over and picked his pencil up off the floor and opened his notebook to a clean page to begin another doodle.

The second he put it to the paper, it struck Dib that the pencil felt _wrong_ in his hand. Arching an eyebrow, he adjusted it in his fingers, but no matter what he did it still felt strange, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly why. He picked up his notebook and noticed something about it also seemed a little off, like someone had tampered with it in a nearly imperceptible way. Outwardly there was nothing wrong with it, but it _felt_ different, Dib was sure of it. He shifted in his seat, noting that even the chair he sat in felt wrong all the sudden, and so did his desktop. Forcing away a sinking feeling that had quickly come over him, Dib reached into his book bag and pulled out his paranormal occurrence log, planning to record a few things he needed to catch up on, and on top of that writing always made him feel better.

Right way, Dib started having trouble. Though he'd written in his journal a thousand times before, it seemed either his handwriting was way off today, or the preprinted lines were spaced a lot closer together, but he felt he had to make his letters a lot tinier than usual to fit them all on the page. And the fact that his exclusive writing pen also felt weird in his grip didn't help things. 

__

What's wrong with me today? Dib wondered. _First I oversleep and wake up in my clothes and I can't remember a thing from the night before, then I come to skool and get this mystery shock, and now my notebook, my desk, my pencil, and even my journal all feel like they're… _

Smaller.

The word was in Dib's head before he could stop it, but once it was there he realized it was surprisingly true. His pencil, his books, and even his desktop all appeared to have diminished in size a few square millimeters_. _Such a subtle change would've been undetectable to most people, but to a highly trained, highly alert paranormal investigator like Dib it was as plain as the Face on Mars. But how could that be possible? _Hmmm, that shock or whatever it was must've inflamed my skin or something_ Dib thought. Of course this idea was even stupider than the one about the static, but again, what other explanation could there be?

Across the room a pair of violet eyes shimmered with an evil excitement, their owner already fully aware of the answer.


	3. They Grow Up So Fast

Chapter 3: They Grow Up So Fast

"Hey Gaz, have you seen my new issue of Crop Circles Magazine? It was supposed to come today," Dib asked, lifting up a couch cushion incase it'd gotten wedged in between them. "Gaz? _Gaz!_"

Gaz lifted her gaze from the drawing she was working on and glared contemptibly at her brother. "What do you want, Dib?" she growled.

"My new magazine, did it come today?"

Gaz opened one squinted eye and picked up a gooey piece of pizza from the coffee table. "There it is," she pointed to a pizza sauce and grease soaked bundle of paper that had once been volume 23, issue 9 of CCM.

"You know," Dib frowned picking up the dripping magazine, "we _have_ plates in the kitchen." His sister just shrugged and took a bite of her pizza, turning her attention back to her picture, so Dib could do nothing but sigh and make his way upstairs. 

As he opened his bedroom door, he couldn't help but noticing that the doorknob seemed a little lower than usual, but he dismissed this as nothing and flopped on his bed where he figured he could at least salvage some of his magazine. 

Dib turned the page to an article about mind-reading super cows (Gentile, psychic livestock, or supernatural bovines of death?) and licked some pizza sauce off his finger. He was about halfway through reading it when-

__

BZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT!!!!!!

"YAAAHHHH!" Dib was so startled by the unexpected jolt he rolled right off the side of the bed. "Unnnhhh..." he sat up with a moan and massaged his aching behind. He was also aware of an odd, buzzing feeling filtering through his body, and he forcefully shook it off. 

"All right! What's going on?!" he demanded after he'd gotten himself reoriented again. 

Dib knelt down and looked under the bed, but all he saw was a bunch of books, boxes, socks, and a piece of three-year old birthday cake with mold growing on it, none of which could've produced the crackle of electricity he'd just felt.

"What's with all these stupid shocks today?" Dib wondered aloud scratching his head. Evidentially it couldn't be any loose or faulty wires since it'd happened before at skool, and this time there was no mistaking what he'd felt for static electricity, so after going over the facts several times, Dib came to yet another brilliant assessment: he had absolutely no freaking clue what the spoot was going on. 

Determined to get to the bottom of this, Dib grabbed his pair of X-scope goggles hanging off the bedpost and headed over to the mirror, reasoning that if the shocks weren't coming from an external source, then maybe they were somehow originating inside of him, some sort of spontaneous human combustion sort of thing perhaps. It was a strange presumption, but when you consider the type of life Dib leads it sounded about as preposterous as fleas on a dog.

He found some difficulty in trying to put on the goggles, which for some reason didn't want to fit around his head today, so Dib loosened the strap a little and pulled the lenses down over his eyes. Switching them on and looking in the mirror he could see that everything seemed to be in order; heart, lungs, kidneys, spleen, intestines… all of them looked fine and there were no foreign objects he could see, except-

"Wait a minute…" Dib squinted and leaned closer to the glass, "What is that?" He turned his head and tried to get a view of the back of his neck. There was something there, something hidden under the collar of his coat that he'd probably have missed if not for the X-scope, and he reached up to see if he could feel what it was. He twisted his head even further and spied what appeared to be a small, roundish piece of metal about the size of a dime stuck to the base of his neck.

… 

At the same time Dib was discovering this, somewhere across town a black-gloved hand was running a finger eagerly over a button on a remote control device. Two ruby eyes glittered maliciously, and a villainous cackle filled the air as the button was pressed down.

…

"YEEEAAAHHHHH!!!" Dib let out a yowl of pain, not because of the white-hot jolt of electricity that had just raced through him, but because of the incredible pressure he suddenly felt as the strap on his goggles inexplicably began tightening like a vice around his head. He tugged frantically at them, trying to pull them off, but they were stuck firmly in place and becoming tighter and tighter every second. Dib squeezed his eyes shut, and right when he felt like his skull was about to burst, the strap snapped in two, and the goggles clattered to the floor.

Dib put a hand over his racing heart, his breath coming in short gasps. "What was _THAT_ all about?!!"

Shaking uncontrollably at the scare he'd just had, he stumbled over and collapsed on his bed, rubbing his sore temples and trying to chase away the dark blotches that were muddling his vision. Something seriously wrong was going on, but before Dib could even begin to work out what it was, another shock ripped through him accompanied by a sharp blow to the top of his head.

"OWW!!" he yelped and bolted upright. Tending to his throbbing forehead, he looked over his shoulder to find that he'd just somehow smacked his head up against the headboard hard enough to leave a dent in the wood. He stared at the spot, his mouth hanging agape. _What…?!!_ _How could I have done that?! _

Plagued with confusion, Dib shut his eyes and swung his legs over the side of the mattress, and unconsciously began tapping his foot on the floor, trying to gather his thoughts. His mind was so overloaded it took him a long time to realize that his feet would normally be dangling freely over the edge of his bed, so how was it that here he was tapping one against the ground?

A feeling impending doom welled up inside the pit of Dib's stomach. His eyes popped open and darted around the room to every piece of furniture and wall hanging. Was he losing his mind, or did everything seem... _lower_ than before?

Swallowing the fear that threatened to choke him, he stood up shakily, and as he did he felt himself rising up much higher than he should have, as if he were standing on stilts or something. From his upright vantage point, the change in the room was even more blaringly obvious. 

He didn't want to believe what he was seeing, but there could be no denying it. His bed, his desk, all his various paranormal investigation equipment and spy gear… all his stuff was smaller than it had been a moment ago, and his posters, the light switch, and all the wall fixtures were unmistakably lower.

__

But how could that be possible?! 

Dib's first crazy thought was that the house must be shrinking. But that was stupid! Why in the world would the house be…

__

BZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT!!!!!!

This pulse of electricity was the strongest one yet. An uncomfortable, tingly sensation crawled under Dib's skin once more and at the same time he watched in horror as the room closed in on him several square feet, and all his furniture appeared to shrink right before his astonished eyes. "What…?!!" he squeaked, his throat dry with fear. "What's _happening_ to me?!!" Dib reached over his head and discovered to his shock that he could now press his palm up against his bedroom ceiling. 

It was impossible. It _couldn't_ be happening, but it was. His blood stopped cold in his veins and his brow broke into a horrified sweat as it hit him; the room wasn't getting smaller, Dib realized in terror, he was growing larger!

The hot stinging buzz invaded his body again, and Dib knew he needed help.

__

BZZZzzzzZZZZzzzzZTT!!

And _fast._

"Gaz! GAAAAAAZ!" Dib called as he bolted for the door. "Ga- OOF!" he fell backwards as he ran smack into the formerly high doorframe. Leaping back up he sprinted down the stairs, taking them two at a time as he went. 

"GAZ! Ga- AAAAAAHHH!!" this time Dib was interrupted as the railing he was leaning on snapped under his hand, and he went tumbling down the remaining steps. "Gaz!" he shouted again after landing in the living room. 

"Ungh…" Gaz growled at the sound of her brother's voice and focused even harder on her lovely drawing depicting an unholy nightmare demon ripping it's way out of a screaming man's chest.

Dib approached the foot of the couch. "Gaz! Something _horrible_ is happening to me! I-"

"Shhh," she held up a hand and gave the creature some more teeth.

"Gaz, please!" Dib cried, the urgency imminent in his voice.

The berry haired girl grumbled and lifted her eyes from the paper. "All right, Dib, what is it this-- Say, what happened to you?" she asked in an indifferent tone as she caught sight of him.

"I don't know!" Dib flung out his arms to indicate just how confused he was. "I was sitting up in my room, and I kept on getting these weird electric shocks, and the next thing I knew I just started growing!"

Gaz discarded a purple crayon and picked up a blue one. "Yeah, I _thought_ your head looked bigger today," she said unconcernedly.

Dib began pacing the room and his scythe-like stalk of hair made a soft brushing noise against the ceiling as he walked. "What am I going to do? This is terrible! How could this be happening?! GAZ!!" he exclaimed and gripped the back of the couch, "How could this be happening!?!?"

"Maybe you're going through a growth spurt," she offered, not looking up from her artwork.

Dib scowled and put his hands on his hips. "Come on, get serious, Gaz! No one grows this much in ten _years_, let alone ten minutes! I mean, just look at me!" he shouted and gestured down at his body, "I must be eight feet tall!!"

Gaz flashed a heavily lashed eye at him; now that her brother was bigger he was even _more_ irritating. Not to mention louder. "Well I don't know what you want _me_ to do about it," she snarled through gritted teeth. "Now leave me alone so I can finish this." With that she began scribbling busily away on her paper and Dib just stared at her, a look of utter hurt on his face. How could his own sister be so unconcerned about the whole ordeal? Still, this was no time to worry about hurt feelings when there were more important issues at hand.

Dib continued to pace back and forth, trying to come up with something that might explain his sudden increase in size. "I don't understand how this could happen," he repeated to himself, furrowing his brow in thought. "What could possibly be causing me to grow like this?"

__

"Do you really want to know?"

Dib answered, "Of course I want to-… Wait a minute! Zim?!" Dib whipped around at the sound of the alien's unmistakable voice and his much-too-large elbow sent a lamp crashing to the floor. 

"Zim! I should've known this had something to do with you!" he clenched his fists angrily. "Where are you? Come out and show yourself!"

"Who're you talking to, Dib?" Gaz asked in an irritated tone.

"Didn't you hear him? It's Zim!"

"I don't hear anything except your stupid voice," she grumbled.

The invader's playfully acid tones came again. _"Oh Diiii-iiiib… Watch your head!"_

"Huh?" The word was barely out of Dib's mouth before he felt the familiar tingle and the next thing found the top of his head crashing through an overhead lighting panel. Groaning, he shook the little bits of glass out of his hair, and before he was even done reeling from this, another round of shocks racked his body. "Nuh!" Dib had to stoop as he felt his shoulders pressing against the ceiling, and the incredible pressure of his expanding body caused a web of cracks to appear in the plaster. If this kept up, it wouldn't be long before he destroyed the house. 

"Unhh! I've got to get out of here before I get any bigger!" he cried and scrambled for the front door.

Dib managed to get his body through easily enough, however his already oversized even before he started growing head got stuck, so he had to back out and push against the doorframe to try and get himself loose. With a grunt, a push, and a pop, he ended up sprawled on the sidewalk, and just in time too, for the instant he climbed to his feet, his body began to tingle again and he felt himself shoot up another several inches. Just to make things even more awkward, a kid on a tricycle happened to be riding by at this moment. The second he caught sight of Dib, his eyes widened and the color drained from his face. Dib shot him a lopsided smile and the kid reacted by abandoning his bike and running down the street screaming like a monkey on fire.

"This is _so_ embarrassing," he grumbled to himself.

__

"Hey, how's the weather up there, Dib?" 

"Zim!" Dib snapped to attention at hearing his nemesis's voice and scanned the yard. "Where are you?"

__

"Don't bother searching for me out there," came the snide reply. _"I'm transmitting to you from the safety of my lab."_

Dib tensed his shoulders angrily. "What've you done to me, Zim?!" he demanded. 

Zim gave a little snort. _"You _really_ have to ask that?"_

"Okay then… _why_ have you done this to me?" he rephrased the question. The only thing he got in reply was a buzzing sensation and another fifteen inches added to his height. 

"Hey! Cut that out!" he shouted. Dib was so tall now he could see into the second story windows of his house, and this discovery only fueled his anger.

"I'll tell you why," Zim went on simply, though a sinister accent tinged his voice. "Come to my base and I'll gladly explain everything."

"But why should I come over there when you can just… Zim? Zim! Hey Zim, answer me!" Dib waited for a response, but the connection between them had been cut off. "Great," he grumbled to himself, "now I have to go all the way across town like this. Could this _possibly_ get any worse?" 

Unfortunately, Dib would find out all too soon. 


	4. Zim's Brilliant Plan

The distance to Zim's house was pleasantly shorter than Dib had memorized, however on the way he couldn't help gaining some unwanted attention. 

A man mowing his lawn ran his tractor over a mailbox, a garden hose, a plastic reindeer left over from Christmas, and the neighbor's cat. A woman in a car crashed into a fire hydrant. A guy fixing some loose shingles smacked his hand with a hammer and fell off the roof. And some kids eating ice cream nearly choked to death, all because they caught sight of Dib as he ran by. But he had no choice but to get to Zim's, so he sucked up his humiliation and ran a little faster. A few times along the way he felt the air around him go snap crackle pop and the prickly tingle ran down his spine. A sure sign that Zim was still up to his tricks.

He knew the little green sadist was probably leading him into a trap, but Dib wasn't about to back down. He _had_ to stop growing, and the only way to do that was to confront his nemesis directly. He even smiled a bit, thinking of what he could do to Zim now that he was the size of a t-rex.

As he came into view of the Irken fortress, Dib set his features in a deadly scowl and stormed up the front walk, kicking over a few lawn gnomes just for the heck of it. He was nearly as tall as the house and had to crouch down to knock on the front door.

"Who is it?" Zim called from inside.

"You _know_ it's me!" Dib retorted. "Now open up!" 

There was a scuffling noise and the door creaked open.

"Why hello, Dib!" Zim flashed him a wide smile. "So nice of you to come. I'd ask you to come inside, but… Well, you know," he shrugged. He gazed up at Dib and got a thoughtful look on his face, putting a hand to his chin and taking a moment to stand there and admire his handiwork. Meanwhile, Dib stood up to his full height and loomed over the relatively tiny alien, regarding him threateningly. 

"I don't know why you're doing this, Zim, but I demand you return me to normal size right now!"

"No, I don't think I'll be doing that," Zim smiled coolly.

"Why even _do_ this?!" Dib thundered. "What stupid reason could you possibly have for enlarging me like this?" 

Zim chuckled. "That's right, I haven't told you my amazing plan yet, have I?"

"You know you didn't," Dib said dryly.

"Well, since you're here I suppose I should let you in on it," Zim folded his scrawny arms, wasting no time getting into 'revel' stance. "To put it simply, you are going to help me destroy the humans."

"What?!" Dib blinked, not sure he heard correctly. 

"Yes, Dib," Zim went on. "Those shocks you've been feeling are macro waves emitted from the device I took the liberty of implanting in you. Whenever I push a button another wave is sent out, and this in turn increases your size. Allow me to demonstrate…" Zim pressed a button on a remote control he was holding, and Dib gasped as he felt himself grow another few meters. 

"Hey, quit it!" he bellowed. "And what device? You never implanted any macro device thingy in me."

"Well _obviously_ I must have."

"But when?"

Zim rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, Dib. I know you have the disadvantage of a puny human brain and all, but you must have figured it out by now." 

And once Dib really thought about it, he realized he _had_ figured it out, a long time ago in fact. "That dream," he breathed, "I knew it, it _was_ real! Now I remember… I _did_ go over to your house last night…" Visions flickered across the movie screen in his mind as Dib's memory came flooding back…

***

Dib is crawling along the ground surrounding Zim's fortress so as not to tip off the gnome security system. He's just finished snapping a few pictures, and now he tucks his camera close to his chest protectively, and smiles to himself on a job well done. Suddenly he senses someone behind him and whips around. It's Zim! Somehow he spotted him.

__

"But you caught me."

Dib begins to run. And Zim begins to run too.

__

"And instead of just letting me go, you chased after me. I remember running as hard as I could, but you were right behind me…"

***

"That's right, Dib. You'd stuck your nose in my business for the last time. I decided right then and there that I would put a stop to it," Zim frowned, and now it was his turn to go into flashback mode…

***

Dib is still running, and in an attempt to shake Zim he ducks behind a building. He hears Zim approaching and makes his patented 'scared' face (you know, the one that drives all the Dib fangirls nuts) and shuts his eyes. He opens one cautiously as he hears Zim skitter by.

__

"You tried to escape…"

After a few minutes he feels safe enough to venture on. He runs into the shadows cast by the building and finds himself heading straight into the waiting clutches of Zim. He screams silently, his features a mask of terror, and the next thing he knows, there is a bright flash of light, then everything has gone black.

__

"… but your attempt was a pitiful failure! I hit you with my sleeper ray and you were out cold."

Now Dib is lying on the pavement, little wisps of smoke curling up from his clothes due to the ray, and Zim stands over his human prize with a strong, arrogant smile. His smile only widens as he crushes Dib's camera with a swift stomp of his boot heel.

__

"Now I just had to figure out what to do with you. Zapping you into human dust right there would have been too easy. No, after all our countless battles your defeat was too big a victory for such a simple thing. I knew I had to do something special for the occasion… then I knew…"

Zim drags Dib by the ankles back to his base and down into his lab, and proceeds to lay him out on an examining table. He looks perfectly angelic lying there asleep, but this doesn't stop Zim from sneering at Dib with a smile full of vengeance and spite. 

_"The only way to make sure you couldn't interfere with my plans… was to make you part of one."_

Zim turns his back, and when he spins around again he holds up a small, round, alien looking chip with a pair of tweezers and places it on Dib's neck where a dozen tiny, hair-like wires shoot out of it and bury themselves in his skin. The wires go deep and thread themselves into Dib's spinal cord, thereby connecting the chip to his central nervous system. Zim fiddles with some switches on a remote and Dib, still unconscious, stands up. Zim grins at this, and hands him a lollypop for being such a good little patient before showing him out of the lab. 

_"Once the chip was in place I sent you back home." _

Ten minuteslater Dib comes through the front door of his house, sleepwalking like a zombie, and makes his way upstairs where he collapses on his bed without changing out of his clothes, and falls fast asleep.

__

"I knew the narco-ray would take care of most of your memories, and those that were left you'd perceive as a common Earthenoid dream." 

Now it's just a few hours earlier, and Zim and Dib are in skool. Dib is sitting and drawing, and Zim's finger hovers precariously over a remote control gadget.

__

"You'd remain oblivious to my brilliant plan until I revealed it with the first press of the button…"

*** 

"You mean your brilliant plan of blowing me up," Dib interrupted blankly.

"Yes."

"Yeah," Dib folded his arms, "you still haven't really explained why you did that yet."

"Yes I did. You're going to destroy the humans."

"Um, _no_."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"I don't think so."

"Well, I say you are."

"Oh really?" Dib smiled derisively. "And just how are you gonna make- Hey! W-what are you doing?!" he stuttered as his arms started moving on their own. "Ow!" he yelped as he smacked himself in the face. Zim laughed at this.

"Didn't I mention? Not only does the chip allow me to control your growth, it also lets me manipulate your body movements." To prove his point, Zim sent Dib's palm slapping into his head again.

"Ow!! Stop that! GAAAHHH!!" This last one came as Dib poked himself in the eye. Zim reared back his head and wallowed in opportunistic laughter at his enemy's discomfort, but with the alien's attention momentarily diverted, Dib saw his opening.

"Hey!" Zim dropped the remote as an enormous hand wrapped around his body and lifted him off the ground. 

"Your little plan isn't going to work, Zim," Dib growled, bringing him up to face level. 

"You dare handle me with your grimy hand of filth?" he snapped. "Put me down!"

Now it was Dib's turn to laugh. "It doesn't look like you have much of a say in it. Now do you return me to normal, or do I start squeezing?" 

He expected Zim to yell some more. To plead. To beg for his life between helpless, whimpering sobs of gutless terror. The last thing he expected was for him to start laughing. 

"What's so- NUH!!" Dib's eyes widened in surprise as his hand unwillingly opened on it's own and Zim jumped to the ground, cackling even harder at Dib's bewilderment. 

"Good work, GIR," Zim took the remote back from the small, neon-green puppy that had shown up on the front step and pulled something out of his pocket. "Here, you get a cookie."

"Yay!!" the little robot in disguise took the cookie Zim held out and skipped joyfully back into the house. 

Zim turned back to Dib. "Foolish human! You really think you're any threat to me? I'm the one who made you this way! Your attempts to intimidate me are laughable." He began to chuckle so Dib could see just how laughable it really was. "And now I'm through playing around. It's time to implement the next phase of my plan."

"There's more?" Dib gulped.

"Oh yes," Zim hissed with an evil type of glee, "You see up until now this amount you've grown has only been a small preview, and now I shall complete your transformation by enlarging you to _one hundred times_ your normal size!"

Dib's jaw dropped. "What?!!"

Zim snickered and examined his nails casually, which was rather odd seeing as he was wearing gloves and he probably didn't have any nails to begin with. "That's what I said, Dib. And once you've reached your full height I'll unleash you on an unsuspecting city where you will rain utter chaos and doom down upon the humans." he ended his speech by flashing a cool smirk. "Sounds fun, yes?"

"_That's_ your brilliant plan?" Dib uttered. "You're going to use me to destroy a bunch of dumb buildings and you think _that's_ going to get you global conquest? This is the stupidest plan you've ever come up with. It's crazy! And besides…" Dib went on after a short pause, "didn't you already do the 'giant rampaging monster of doom' plan?"

"Hmm…" Zim stuck out his jaw in thought.

Dib let out a pent up sigh of aggravation. "Remember?" he said wryly. "Ultra-Peepi? Great big mutant hamster? Ring any bells?"

"Oh yes, the Peepi," Zim dismissed the name with a wave of his hand. "Perhaps you're right Dib worm, but unlike Ultra-Peepi, I'll have total control of you at all times so there's no chance of anything going wrong, and since you'll be a part of my plan there's no way you can interfere. I get you out of my antennae once and for all _and_ take over the planet at the same time. The perfectness is almost frightening it's so… perfect." Zim held his head up proudly. "And besides all that, the irony of using you to destroy the very humans you try so hard to protect was just too delicious not to indulge." 

Zim began toying with the remote some more and Dib's legs began moving on their own, backing away from the alien's base. He struggled to move in the opposite direction, wanting desperately to lunge at Zim and mash him like a bug, but his body was no longer his to control. For all his newly acquired stature, he was completely at Zim's mercy.

"You're never going to get away with this!" Dib shouted.

Zim frowned. "You know, you _could_ show a little gratitude."

"_Gratitude?!_" Dib's expression was that of utter incredulity. "For _WHAT?!_"

"You think I _enjoy_ seeing my worst enemy out-tall me? Do you have any _IDEA_ how you'd be revered on my planet?! How many Irkens would give anything to be in your situation?"

"So why not just use this thing on yourself?" Did said, referring to the chip on his neck.

Zim sighed disgustedly, "Argh, did I _NOT_ just get done explaining it?" and just for his stupid question, he sent Dib's hand smacking into his face again.

"Okay, fine!" Dib snapped, "Do whatever you want with me! But someone will stop you!"

"Oh yeah?" Zim challenged, "Like who?"

"The military. The air force. The Marines. Someone!" 

Zim just grinned up at Dib like some sort of deranged Cheshire Cat. "But I'm not going to be the one wrecking the city, Dib… you are. So which one of us do _you_ think the humans will attack?"

Dib's large eyes filled with fear at this terrifying new concept, and this only furthered to fuel Zim's vindictive gratification. 

"And now…" he announced, "I shall begin the final phase of my plan. So long, Dib. It was fun while it lasted, but there's a planet to be enslaved, vengeance to be had, yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth…" 

Zim pointed the remote control at Dib, who just stood there helplessly and tried to convince himself that it might not be so bad being nearly four hundred feet tall. 

"Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit..." Zim assured him."

Dib sighed in relief.

"... At least not until I press this button."

Zim wasn't kidding either. The shocks had stung a little before, but nothing could've prepared Dib for the pain that now sizzled through him, seeming to penetrate down to his every last cell as if each one were short-circuiting. The initial shock was brief though, and the next second the world seemed to tilt and sway for Dib as he started growing at a rate that defied human comprehension. In less than five seconds he dwarfed every building on the cul-de-sac. In ten seconds he had doubled even this. And still, the world continued to shift downward at a terrifying speed, the buildings and sky becoming a nightmarish blur as Dib kept on shooting up higher and higher. It wasn't long before he'd passed the one hundred foot mark… then the one-twenty… then the one-fifty… then two hundred. He felt his stomach churning, the food he'd eaten earlier threatening to come up as his elevation climbed (and the fact that it was cafeteria food didn't help), but even then he kept right on growing and growing and growing, and just when he thought he couldn't possibly stand to grow any bigger…it stopped.

Dib swallowed hard and dared to take a peek down. He immediately regretted it. The whole city lay spread out below him like a toy model, as if he were viewing it from a helicopter, and his head began to spin from the dizzying sight. The cluster of buildings down by his feet looked so small he could barely make out which house was Zim's anymore, though oddly enough, he could still hear the green one's gratuitous laughter even from his altitude. In fact, it sounded so close he might as well have been right next to his ear. No, more like right inside his head…

__

Wait a minute… it is_ inside my head_, Dib realized, and only now did it occur to him that the chip Zim had implanted must also serve as a transmitter, which explained why he'd heard his voice back at his house.

"HAHAHAHAAAA!!!" Zim's strong laughter bounced off the walls of Dib's skull. "My plan is now complete! Go now, my Dib Monster, go rain havoc and chaos down upon your precious Earth people! HEEHEEHAHAHAAAAA!!!"

Dib tried to protest, to scream out, but he found that he couldn't move his mouth. Like all the rest of his body, even his face was now subject to Zim's control. _"No! NOOOOOO!!!!"_ his mind screamed instead, but no matter how strongly his inner voice cried out he found himself moving powerlessly under the wills of Zim on a straight, unwavering path towards the city.

A/N: Of course if _I_ were Zim, the first place I'd send Dib would be Nickelodeon Studios if you catch my drift heh heh : ) But oh well.


End file.
